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The closest connection Mendel Weisenbachfeld has to Whizzer Brown comes from the infrequent occasion when they spend the day together with Jason. There have only been a couple circumstances in their entire time knowing each other that they’ve been alone with each other, or even together with only Jason as company. Most of the time Marvin, Trina, or both accompany them, in which case Mendel and Whizzer rarely exchange more than niceties and pointless small talk. There just never seems to be much reason or opportunity to get to know his wife's ex-husband's lover.
From the few times Mendel has struck up a sustained conversation with Whizzer, or with someone else about Whizzer, he’s gathered a few things about the man's story. Mendel knows that he works as a photographer, he loves baseball, and he enjoys playing racquetball with Marvin. He knows that Whizzer doesn’t have much contact with the family that he grew up with. Mendel once accidentally prompted out of Whizzer the story of how he was kicked out of his childhood home sometime in high school when his father had discovered his sexuality. And he has been in New York ever since, doing... whatever it takes, Mendel supposes. It had worked out. Until now.
Mendel is sad for the man, of course. He likes Whizzer well enough. But during all this chaos that's not what gets to him. Mendel does genuinely grieve at the thought of losing Whizzer, but what really destroys him is watching everyone else fall apart.
He watches Trina, who tries tirelessly not to break down herself so she can be there for her son, and even after everything, be there for Marvin as well. Despite her efforts to stay strong, Mendel can see the toll that recent events are taking on her.
He sees through her facade. All her strained smiles looked as phony to him as an actual mask covering her features. It is impossible to be reassured by the unfeeling act she puts on when he can see the pain in her eyes. When he can feel her lie stiff for hours after they go to bed, forced to remain conscious by monsters that guard her sleep like jewels. They don't bear claws or fangs, but manifest themselves from her fears. Of loss, of change, of a family that might crumble back into the rubble it had recently been if a piece is removed.
Mendel holds her. Whispers that "everything will be alright," but his reassurances are as convincing to Trina as her smile is to him.
Jason tries to be strong too, but lacks the years of practice in repressing emotions that his mother can draw upon. The kid is already enough of an outcast at school, and the last thing he needs is to seclude himself even more as he struggles for the first time in his young life with the prospect of death.
Mendel says the same things to Jason. "Everything will be alright, buddy. Just wait and see. We'll get through it," but his words fall on deaf ears. And if not deaf, at least the ears of a boy too stubborn, and smart to let himself believe such lies.
That's what eats at Mendel. He’s never been able cure people in the same manner as Charlotte, but his entire career is built on healing people in other ways. Talking to them, and lessening whatever burden weighs on them.
Mendel's family needs him more than ever to help them. To do the thing he is best at, but for some damned reason none of his attempts are working. His family and friends suffer, and Mendel tries to comfort them, but it doesn't help. He can't get through. At the most vital time in his life, the one skill he has been honing since college proves useless.
The most important people in his life are fighting the very demons he has been trained to exorcise. Mendel pulls out every trick he knows. Listening, rationalizing, distracting— not only can he not slay their demons, he can't even begin to hold them at bay.
While Jason, and Trina, and all the others are under the constant assault of writhing swarms of despair and fear, anger and regret, Mendel's oppressors sit in his periphery. Watching him fail to save everyone. Shaming him with constant reminders of his inadequacy. Through the guilt of his failure, Mendel keeps trying.
Mendel asks about feelings, encourages people to use him to vent, reminds people of the good: that at least Whizzer had been in their lives. He comforts, and hugs, and absorbs their wrath when they need someone to scream at. None of it helps.
Useless. This family deserves someone who can do more for them. Not fall flat in their time of need. Mendel hates the defeated slumps and flat voices that have replaced open arms and hearty laughs in his home. He hates himself for letting that happiness slip away so completely, not even managing to preserve the tiniest bit of light.
He tries anything he can think of that might help them until there is nothing different left to do. When he’s out of new methods to try, Mendel repeats the same encouragement. The same promise he has made since the first discovery of Whizzer's illness. No one believes him.
He says it again. Again, again, again, to himself as much as to anybody else. Hoping that maybe, if this broken family hears it enough, somehow, they might start to believe him. So, when there is nothing left to do, Mendel repeats the same words. And if they sound like a lie to everyone that hears them, that doesn't stop him.
"Everything will be alright."